whats the point of fast cpu

nawfalNov 2, 2006, 12:18 PM

i think new processors are a waste in a way, games dont really need anything above an amd 3500, all this core 2, x2, and speeds of 5000 are kinda irrelevant, at any decent resolution. i play games at 1920x1400, and i didnt notice any change in fps in moving from amd 3200 to x2 4400 @ 2.7ghz

and definately, the general office user, doesnt need any processor above amd 2800 or p4 2.8ghz, so where are amd and intel going to go from here?

i think thats why they both bought their graphics card companies, because they realise they arent going to make any money from their high end processors, as there is no demand, and they have no benefit. the best money is spent, in buying better graphics card. i bought x1900xtx, and the difference was huge.

i mean these new x4 processors are out, whats the point. even dual core has no advantage at any decent resolution.

anyways, im thinking anything around the amd 3200, or equivalent p4, is enough to play games, if youre gonna play at an res over 1024x1028 with AA, and AF

While I tend to agree with you, I think that the low end X2 3800+ should be the minimum processor these days. It would last a business user a good long time. Dual core is the trend and app's will all make use of that. Buy a fast CPU and your PC has a longer life cycle. I usually shoot for High End - 1 for the best value. I'm moving to PCI-e in the spring (up from my Athlon 2500+) and I'll probably aim for the 4600+ class of CPU. That should last 4 years with one GPU upgrade in between.

i agree with you in that we are going towards dual core, but it still is of minor benefit, especially when playing at high res, aa, af, soft shadows etc, any modenish computer is graphics limited, rather than processor limited.

if i had an amd 3000, and had 300bux to spend, i would get a new graphics card, and then SLI before i upgrade my processor, dual core or not.

because you get more benefits from the gfx card

i think any modernish processor will be able to play a game with 60fps.

but i think it is relevant, because the majority of high end cpu users are gamers.

Thats completely contradictory Gamers dont need to be high end cpu users as you correctly stated in your first post... so maybe the majority of high end cpu gamers are stupid? hehe.Or maybe its actually that they do need the high end cpu for multi tasking and other non gaming tasks. Not everyone treats their pc as just a games console.

But there is nothing like Rendering 3dsmax or Maya projects in 1/4(1/2 for dual core) the time

and video encoding is another area......

Your right....current games are not CPU bound....but the extra CPU(or 3) will help you multi task better while you game....In the future more and more games will take advantage of multi core....then you will get to see your boost from that 4400

The people who are benefitting from dual core and now quad core are the ones who use the software that has been written to leverage the power of multiple processors for years. Content creation - video, 3d modelling, audio processing and and such has been using multiple processors for years, and is the first segment to really benefit from the cost reduction of the current generations of multiple core chips. Gaming has not benefitted as much from this transition yet, although it will in the reasonably near future. Gaming is a spare time endeavor and hasn't had the impetus of money to leverage multiple processors. Work time costs money, rendering time costs money. Cut the time to produce a given amount of work and your costs go down for performing that work. Gaming has traditionally been viewed as cake - the things people use their computers for when they get home from work and aren't costing suits money. Content creation etc. is steak and potatoes because people are being paid for their time by the aforementioned suits. Programming for multiple prcessors costs time and therefore money as well. Some of the big money cost for "serious" programs that have always been written to make use of multiple cores is due to the effort required in writing such programs - Adobe Premiere for example is an expensive program to buy because it is used to make money by utilizing relatively expensive equipment and expensive people efficiently. People playing games are paying to play games, not being paid to play those games (yes, there are exceptions - but too few to skew the model.)

are you kidding?!? have you played HL2? it requires a hell of alot of CPU power, my 3500 OC'ed to 3.45 max's out completely. and besides the resilution is more to do with the Grfx card then the CPU. also what game? o could say that having a K7 1000 thunderbird is gives me an amazing fps, doesnt mean anything cause it could be any game. try running a game with full rag doll effects, such as HL2 with garys mod, after around 20 to 30 characters, it slows to less then 1 fps

Oh yeah, let me add something thats actually a bit helpful... FPS games don't really benefit that much more from a faster CPU, but RTS games do. All the thinking the AI does in RTS games and turn-based strategy... you think the gpu is doing those calculations?

There has been talk of an AI chip to help unload some of that process off the cpu... wondering if this will take off... matrix anyone?

Most of the software out there just needs a chance to catch up to today's processors. Sure, there aren't a lot of games/apps out there that are mult-threaded, but the hardware will allow software designers to innovate and come up with ways to utilize the extra cores.

i think new processors are a waste in a way, games dont really need anything above an amd 3500, all this core 2, x2, and speeds of 5000 are kinda irrelevant, at any decent resolution. i play games at 1920x1400, and i didnt notice any change in fps in moving from amd 3200 to x2 4400 @ 2.7ghz

and definately, the general office user, doesnt need any processor above amd 2800 or p4 2.8ghz, so where are amd and intel going to go from here?

i think thats why they both bought their graphics card companies, because they realise they arent going to make any money from their high end processors, as there is no demand, and they have no benefit. the best money is spent, in buying better graphics card. i bought x1900xtx, and the difference was huge.

i mean these new x4 processors are out, whats the point. even dual core has no advantage at any decent resolution.

anyways, im thinking anything around the amd 3200, or equivalent p4, is enough to play games, if youre gonna play at an res over 1024x1028 with AA, and AF

Like the others have said here, there are many other things than games to use computers for. I don't game, but I spend my days making programs to help analyze brain tumors for my MSc thesis. Most long running ones are on Matlab and can take a few hours to run on my C2D E6600 (& 1.5x - 6x longer on my AthlonXP 2800). This is a nice time saving (makes debugging less frustrating) even though the version of matlab I have does not really use 2 cores. It maximizes on 1 core while I can still post on these forums, get email... Jo

Now the thing is if you do any multi tasking as a user (I know I do way too much for my poor 2400+ and I would love to have a dual core right now) You want to have a dual core. A dual core has allot of little advantages over a single core processors. When it comes to gaming you are right that it doesn't help that much with this gen of games however if you would want to future proof at all when building a new computer you are going to want to have a dual core with newer gen games.

I agree that a gfx is way more important in gaming but that doesn't make the dual core useless. They do give a performance benefit and the ability to multi task makes them very useful for the very day user and gamer. As well as faster load time. I am very happy with the way things are going for processors and cant wait to get my hands on a C2D seeing how powerful these things are and would settle for no less then a E6300 or equal processor for a person building right now.

i think new processors are a waste in a way, games dont really need anything above an amd 3500, all this core 2, x2, and speeds of 5000 are kinda irrelevant, at any decent resolution. i play games at 1920x1400, and i didnt notice any change in fps in moving from amd 3200 to x2 4400 @ 2.7ghz

You think very radical. PCs are made for many purposes and gaming is only one irelevant purpose.

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and definately, the general office user, doesnt need any processor above amd 2800 or p4 2.8ghz, so where are amd and intel going to go from here?

General user is not office user.

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i think thats why they both bought their graphics card companies, because they realise they arent going to make any money from their high end processors, as there is no demand, and they have no benefit. the best money is spent, in buying better graphics card. i bought x1900xtx, and the difference was huge.

AMD bought ATi, but Intel bought nothing. Also ATi is producing other chips, not only graphics processors. AMD bught ATI because they were needing it to have their own complete platform. Intel allready has graphics chips, but are not aimed for gaming.

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i mean these new x4 processors are out, whats the point. even dual core has no advantage at any decent resolution.

The point is buy what you need, be it Pentium1 or 8P Opteron server.

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anyways, im thinking anything around the amd 3200, or equivalent p4, is enough to play games, if youre gonna play at an res over 1024x1028 with AA, and AF

P4 is not good for games if you consider the performance/price factor.

True true, not to mention that software usually isin't written when there is no hardware to support it... so once C2D's become mainstream, then more and more apps will require multi-threading and anyone caught without a dual-core will be faced with total obsoletism...

And uh... Muffin... no more E-refrences... my E-penis is now at E-millimeter levels...

Does someone have a gun to your head, forcing you to buy a "fast" CPU?

Did you feel compelled to do it because someone else is bragging about what they spent their last $1000 on?

At any moment in past years, you had the same choice, running a "typical" system of that era which is targeted by game developers, or splurging for something better than average to exploit every last FPS possible that the game could support. As always, that less common, most performance possible range of technology in any given era will cost disporportionately more even if it's not the highest speed CPU but just a more frequent upgrade cycle.

Nobody is forcing you to upgrade before your choice of games, needs it.

I don't think he ment that you had to buy a dual core just that it isn't something that is need or will help with gaming at the moment for a computer you are going to buy right now.

However I don't even agree with this as if you are going to buy a computer at this this time I think you will want a dual core because of the games that WILL be coming out and if you do any multi tasking you will want a dual core for sure.

The OP says something very controversial, using horrible grammar and spelling, doesn't have the knowledge to back up his outrageous statement,provides no links to sources (if there is a link, it's to The Enquirer :roll:),then stops posting once other members call him/her on it.

And usually, the OP quits even before the veterans, like Crashman, Wusy, etc. get to him/her.

This is not even taking into account the ability to run something in tandem with your games (e.g. you could have dual-monitor setup, be surfing the web at the same time you are playing WoW and have the performance be amazing on both applications). Make sense?

<obvious sarcasm>Anyway, if you think about it you'll find that more cores = crap! I mean, if you're in a competition, do you want to be 4th place or 1st? Obviously you want to be 1st! Cores are the SAME WAY! Don't you people understand that?!?!?!?!?! Why can't you understand the genius facts I'm presenting here?</obvious sarcasm>

You can only argue stupidity with stupidity, not with facts... we're all going about this the wrong way...

My 1k Pentium EE edition costs so much more than a puny 200 dollar e6300 so it must perform better... not to mention its clockspeed is so much higher therefore its the best cpu for gaming... all the rest of ya'll are newbies!

How about those of us that play online FPS games and like to have ventrilo, x-fire and the game up and running all at the same time and not have to crash the game to come out and go on IRC to find a match etc... my C2D performs very well under those conditions something my previous processor (+3000 64 OC'd) sometimes struggled to do.

Also there are other fringe benefits to upgrading to newer chips which now seem to be more multicore orientated i.e. temps and power managment features.

I personally hate it when they do this happens. I feel that a good discussion about these things would be nice, however when you just make a statement and then you don't back it up or even post it is a slap in the face of everyone in the forumz.

Here, we can edit the question to make it more educated and worth of discussion, whats the point of a marginally faster CPU that barely offers any performance increases, aka whats the point of the E6650 than the E6600... The new FSB might net some more performance increases, but otherwise its the exact same chip... should companies wait and release things all at one time, or should they bust out with minor refreshes every other month (Apple, I'm looking at you)

I'm a big fan of big things all coming at once so I can buy it and not feel obsolete, but then these companies would make less money...

Here, we can edit the question to make it more educated and worth of discussion, whats the point of a marginally faster CPU that barely offers any performance increases, aka whats the point of the E6650 than the E6600... The new FSB might net some more performance increases, but otherwise its the exact same chip... should companies wait and release things all at one time, or should they bust out with minor refreshes every other month (Apple, I'm looking at you)

I'm a big fan of big things all coming at once so I can buy it and not feel obsolete, but then these companies would make less money...

I agree that they should all come out at the same time. However I personally don't see any real difference say from the E6600 and the E6400. You might be getting some better clock speed and even if you don't OC you will never really be able to tell unless you bench mark. The things that make me want to upgrade are more along the lines of 64bit tech (although this didn't make me want to upgrade and still hasn't been that useful from what I have seen for a gamer) and Dual core. When you put something into a processor that really changes the way the computer works (hyperthreading, Hypertransporting, ect) These are the things that make a processor better then another processor for me personally. I don't care as much about clock speed (how ever when it comes to a huge jump in speed such as if I would just upgrade my XP 2400+ to a C2D with out the dual core just the boost in power I could see doing this however I feel the draw for me comes more from the dual core just because I mutli task allot and like to get 3+ things done at once which I cant do with my present computer).

And when it comes to things like the EE and the FX I don't see any reason for me to even care about these things. Only people that are loaded care about these things and if they want to spend 3x as much just to get 10% more power... well more power to you.

I do think these processors (EE FX) do count toward the performance crown of course just because its about who can make the best of the best when it comes to that but really out side of that and people who like to burn a 100 dollar bill to smoke a cig I don't see a need for these processors

True, most of the time the difference is fairly marginal (E6400 to E6600)... to most average consumers there will be no difference, to us enthusiasts there will be, but we always stress the minor details anyways.

Yeah, holding off to buy for a major change makes much more sense then buying for every minor refresh (unless you have the money... I'm looking at you Ninja ) but companies want to make money...

but i think it is relevant, because the majority of high end cpu users are gamers.

Maybe the majority of high end users are gamers where you live, but not where I live. When working, I often have 4 to 5 screens open at the same time and those screens have mathmatical models and medical programs running. Speed does count, and dual core can help a bunch. My office has put off buying the C2D cpu's mainly in anticipation of the quad core cpu's that are about to be released. Oh yes, at the office there is no overclocking allowed, only bone stock systems, so a cpu has to be fast as its sold.

At home, on my gaming computer, I play my games, play with overclocking, and all the rest. I still like to have high speed, multi core cpu's so I can do more stuff at the same time. sure, I think there's more to be gained on the graphics card than the cpu, but the cpu is what puts it all together and a slow cpu is a hindrance that I don't want. With Vista coming out next year, maybe in January, I think the cpu speed will become even more important. But that's my opinion and others may disagree.

No no, your totally right... thats what I was getting at. Hardware usually drives software, and with the recent Vista release, we'll be able to see our hardware utilized a lot more than it used to during the XP days. The cpu has always been an important part of computing (well, the most important, unless your a gamer) and Vista will once again stress the need to have a powerful system. Whether people will like it is a different question, but there are many programs out there that benefit from a faster cpu.

i think new processors are a waste in a way, games dont really need anything above an amd 3500, all this core 2, x2, and speeds of 5000 are kinda irrelevant, at any decent resolution. i play games at 1920x1400, and i didnt notice any change in fps in moving from amd 3200 to x2 4400 @ 2.7ghz

and definately, the general office user, doesnt need any processor above amd 2800 or p4 2.8ghz, so where are amd and intel going to go from here?

i think thats why they both bought their graphics card companies, because they realise they arent going to make any money from their high end processors, as there is no demand, and they have no benefit. the best money is spent, in buying better graphics card. i bought x1900xtx, and the difference was huge.

i mean these new x4 processors are out, whats the point. even dual core has no advantage at any decent resolution.

anyways, im thinking anything around the amd 3200, or equivalent p4, is enough to play games, if youre gonna play at an res over 1024x1028 with AA, and AF

I suggest you to have a look at the history of games and see how they evolved.

What you described are only the visual improvements that has been made in recent years.

Game appears as they are now because of the processing power available from modern CPU. GPU came about because it was more efficient to offload the rendering to dedicated HW.

If you speak to some developers, you will hear them asking for processing power so they can add more features to the game. One reason why they don`t make full use is partly because not everyone has the latest and greatest set of kits.

Dual core is a very recent and now Intel is pushing for quad core even before dual core has a chance to settle. Valve may even consider skipping dual core and pump straight for quad core.

But what improvements will quad core provide ? My money is on a fully dynamic world. Imagine playing in a world where everything is movable and destructable. Being able to blow a hole in a wall anywhere to escape or outsmart your enemy rather than using doors or windows.

Developers will make use of the processing power once it becomes viable to do so. If they did not, we wouldn`t be playing the games like we have today.

The majority of high-end computer users are people who spend all day rendering movies or doing hard-core editing, our computers are pansies next to those... don't even get me started on the enterprise server market... I bet IBM, Sun, and Google have more processing power than all the gamers in the world put together...

No no, your totally right... thats what I was getting at. Hardware usually drives software, and with the recent Vista release, we'll be able to see our hardware utilized a lot more than it used to during the XP days. The cpu has always been an important part of computing (well, the most important, unless your a gamer) and Vista will once again stress the need to have a powerful system. Whether people will like it is a different question, but there are many programs out there that benefit from a faster cpu.

It hasn't always been this way but I am very happy that it is this way now. It suxed to buy a computer and it be out of date the next week after you get it because of the new programs and games out. Its nice that my 3+ year old 2400+ R9700 pro can play Oblivan and the other new games out today. So yes its great that the C2Q is out so that it pushes programers